1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to metal forms and a shoring head mounted on a shoring frame supporting the metal form, more specifically, the invention relates to a form for receiving concrete and a cooperating complementary shoring head for metal deck concrete composite floors and roofs.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In building constructions, concrete beams and slabs comprising a roof or floor, may be integrally cast as a unit through a complex formwork. Such formworks frequently have wooden beam forms with wooden or metal decks spanning the beam forms, or such form work frequently is of the "metal pan convention form" consisting of a plurality of steel forms or metal pan members. Depending on the desired length for the slab between these metal pan members, the metal pan members may be interconnected or spaced-apart with a deck bridging the spaced-apart pans. The area between the pan members has a greater depth than that above the pan members and in the pouring of the concrete, the beam is formed in this greater depth section, whereas the slabs are formed integrally with the beams in the lesser depth concrete section. Some "metal pan convention forms" are exemplified in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,073,906; 1,550,810; and 3,708,929.
The advantageous use of corrugated metal deck members, having alternating ribs and valleys and an overlying layer of concrete with which it coacts in a composite manner has been employed advantageously in roofs and floors.
There has evolved a design in composite slabs which allows longer longitudinal spans. This has been disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,967,426, issuing on July 6, 1976. A metal deck has a plurality of longitudinally oriented hollow ribs and a flat panel section disposed between adjacent ribs. At predetermined locations, segments of the metal deck are interrupted to create a downwardly extending slab beam oriented generally transversely with respect to the hollow ribs. In this system, wooden forms may still be used to form the concrete beam.
In the above designs for forming a series of concrete slabs alternating with a series of concrete beams, complex formworks are involved, which, in turn, require a complex scaffolding design to support these formworks. Safety regulation standards limit the length of the slab between the beams, and until the teachings of U.S. Pat. No. 3,967,426, the range for the length of the slab was substantially less than that given by the composite deck of the U.S. Pat. No. 3,967,426. More beams or joists were required to support the lesser length for the slabs. Arrangements for forming a slab-beam floor or roof assembly requires the complex formworks and scaffolding arrangements, for these present methods for forming a slab-beam system results in high labor costs. In addition, intensive labor is involved in erecting and removing these various formworks and their related scaffolding designs.
In some instances, disassemblage of these present slab-beam systems is such that the beam form may not be reusable in that the several wooden parts may also be disassembled.
There remains, therefore, a substantial need for an economical means of forming a concrete slab-beam system so as to permit greater design flexibility of building design and improved economy of constructing the slab-beam system. In addition, there is a particular need for such slab-beam systems which simplify the formwork design and scaffolding or shoring frames for supporting the formwork thereby lessening labor costs thereof. There is a need to simplify a beam form which is unitary and reusable and designed to support a structural member for forming a slab, which slab may include a metal deck exemplified by the type disclosed in the above mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 3,967,426. There is a need to provide a beam form, and a shoring head that are designed so that the beam form sits directly on the shoring head, of the shoring frame. There is a need to decrease the need for labor and thus, costs, in the erecting and disassemling stages of the form works and scaffolding, and to provide a slab-beam system which greatly increases the efficiency of forming concrete slab-beam and floors and roofs.